Well, you made it through the first chapter alive! Now let's see what has become of Raphael.
This will be a mature story due to strong language, blood/gore, and suggestive material.
Hope you enjoy it and feel free to comment or fave.
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Raphael felt like he was swimming. Not really him exactly, but it was like his head was swimming, drowning almost. It was as if he was fighting to stay at the only the surface, bobbing in a storm to breath. Slowly, he felt himself open his eyes. He no longer heard the blood rushing through his ears or the pounding of his weakening heart. Maybe he lost all of his blood from the gash in his leg or maybe the Purple Dragons found him and picked him apart with their poisoned blades. However, none proved fact. He still lay in a pool of his own blood, granted he could barley wiggle his toes or see straight, but at least he wasn't dead. Yet.
He could depict the soft crunch of the dead grass not too far from him. And as much as he hated to move at the moment, he knew he had to act fast. With the pace of a slug, the ninja found the strength to push himself up onto the tree in a standing position. Gripping one of the limbs as support, Raph braced for an attack. The footsteps came closer. Closer. Closer to the other side of the tree. He could see it now: a damn Dragon wielding a blade, anticipating for the turtle to be dead or struggling at least. He would be in for a surprise. When he felt the time was right, Raph leapt from the tree, arm drawn back to deliver a punch that would not doubt send the Dragon flying, like what he did with Mikey.
The red clad ninja devised a cunning clan: beat the ever-loving shit out of the Dragon until he cried for mercy.
Because of the blood loss, it was difficult to tell what exactly he was aiming at, yet he knew that this was not one of the Dragons. His fist stopped in mid-punch, hanging in the air like a bird shot out of the sky. In front of him was a girl. Not exactly a human girl, but still a girl. She resembled a tiger; fur covered her entire body, decorating her curves with orange and black stripes, yet she stood upright and had the same basic shape of a human. This girl was slightly shorter than Raphael with long, shapely legs and claws decorating her toes and fingers. Her eyes seemed entirely too large for her face and glowed deep orange with an eerie sense of knowing. Her upper lip was slightly split like that of a feline with long whiskers much like their Master Splinter on her puffy cheeks. She even had the ears of a tiger and only wore a simple cloth to cover her tiny breasts along with her middle and held a clay pot between the pads of her fingers.
The thing that broke Raphael's attention was the classic twig snap maybe a hundred yards from their position. At this point, Raphael couldn't see hardly anything, only bits of color smudged across his vision. Just as he began to feel faint once again, another wave of searing pain struck his insides and made him double over in pain, clutching his sides with his blood-smeared hands. He wheezed softly as his knee pads touched the ground. Tears began to form in the corner of his eyes, but he refused to let himself cry. If he was going to die in front of someone, much less a girl, he would go out strong, not crying like a new born human baby. If there was anything he was most embarrassed about, it would have to be crying. Ever since he was a kid, he hated crying and would rarely succumb to it, even when he was alone.
The tigress looked at him curiously, at first, then knelt down to his level, balancing her weight on the balls of her feet. She put the pot aside and reached for the mutant turtle, touching his left arm. He tried to jerk himself away, but he couldn't seem to get his body to move. It was as if he was paralyzed from the neck down and he hated it; he hated the feeling of being so helpless, not able to do anything against this person. Her touch was soft like her fur, and warm. She lifted up Raphael's arm and moved so the curve of her hip touched the turtle's side. The red clad ninja didn't remember standing up, but it seems that somehow his legs found the strength to stand, supported by the tigress who leaned over slightly to fetch her pot, which she held in one arm, balancing the edge of it on her hip, like a mother did with a child.
As they began to walk, or stumble to say the least, Raphael felt like he would pass out at any time. His head seemed to pass into a stage of unconsciousness then back to reality. After what felt like hours, the turtle felt his body go into overdrive, like his limbs reacted on its own. He could feel the dry, prickly grass beneath his toes and the occasional exposed tree root caused him to stumble over his own feet.
The tigress had to use much of her own strength to lift the mutant turtle when he would slip away. Her arms felt like they were on fire due to the constant flexing and relaxing. The turtle was heavy, but she thought it must have been mostly the shell on his back. Either way, she knew she could not carry him all the way to the village by herself; she would need to either put him down and find help or find a spot to hide until the morning when Gibson would discover her missing and send out a search.
They had been walking for about a mile and the tigress knew there was no way they would make it all the way to the village. She knew of a cave nearby that she used to play in as a child, it would offer the perfect protection against whatever attacked the turtle. They stumbled along for another quarter mile until they happened upon the river bed which had dried up some time ago during the summer. The cave lay just beyond the tree line, shrouded by boulders and shrubs. By the time she pulled the turtle above the first large boulder, he was out cold. The tigress sighed heavily, feeling sweat beading beneath her fur. She sat among the rocks, resting for a few moments before laying the other mutant on his back, pulling on his arms to heave him over the remaining rocks. By the time the tigress made it to the mouth of the cave, the moon was beginning to fade into the brightening sky. Somehow she managed to half drag, half carry Raphael to the back of the cave, propping him up against the wall.
The female mutant got on her knees, leaning close to his face. She then pressed her right ear against the turtle's plastron, listening for a sign that she didn't just drag him up here for no reason. The end of her tail flicked to and fro as she listened. She could hear his heart beating, but she knew that he didn't have much longer; the slash in his leg was no longer bleeding, the skin enflamed and red, swollen around his knee pads. The mutilated flesh was now beginning to turn a deep red, almost black, hanging on with merely a strings worth of meat, dying out as the time went by. Raphael breathed shallowly, struggling as if come invisible force clutched his throat, asphyxiation setting in.
The tigress could feel her gut lurch from the copper smell, yet she could do nothing. She made her way to the mouth of the cave, peaking around the corner. The air was dry tonight and carried an unfamiliar scent. She inhaled softly, not making a sound. She couldn't put her claw on what exactly it was, but she could smell the high levels of testosterone and failed to recognize what or who it was exactly. With a final glance at the nothingness in the forest, she proceeded to sprinkle the water from her pot onto the other mutant, cooling his burning skin. He seemed to sigh with relief and visibly relax his shoulders, slouching against the rocks. She knew she would have to do something about his leg, though. With a swift rip, she removed the cloth around her, leaving her breasts exposed in the air. This would at least clot his leg somewhat, keeping him from losing any more blood than he needed to. The tigress pressed the cloth into the wound, causing Raphael to grunt and stiffen up again. All she could do was hold the cloth into place, humming a lullaby to help soothe turtle and wait for someone to find them.